Better To Live On Your Knees Than Die On Your Feet
by sweetyamiyugigirl
Summary: Full summary inside. Not for the fient of heart. What if the Vorlons decided to rule the younger races, rather than to watch and manipulate genetically? What if the half bloods existed in secret from aforementioned rulers? I DOn't own anything.
1. Prolouge

A warning: This story is based off an idea that is rather terrifying which is the Vorlons decided to rule the younger races instead of manipulating them subtly.

Summary: There were many choices made during the show Babylon 5 by the characters. Some choices went well, others poorly. The Vorlons made a choice long before the Babylon program was ever a thought. They chose to watch and to meddle with the genetics of the younger races. What if they chose differently? What if they chose to rule the younger races?

Prologue

Most races don't remember when _they_ first came to their home worlds. They just seemed to always have been there. To rule, guide and to make sure that the people they presided over did not stray from the correct path. Several races accepted their rulers quietly; they were The Minbari, The Narn, and several of the league worlds. Others had protested, but gave in quickly to the gentle but firm rule they were the Centauri and the rest of the league worlds.

But one race vividly remembers the day that _they_ had arrived. Only one race fought bitterly against _their_ rule. One race had resisted for a couple of years against the rule of them. It actually surprised the ruling ones how spirited and willful that particular race of young ones was. The fact that they had battled them successfully in the first few years of rule was astounding; of course the other young races were much more obedient (in the ruling one's collective opinion). But, as always even that willful, passionate, and above all stubborn race had broken, and were quietly ruled. But the ruling one who had broken them was still on their planet and not another so as to make sure they never tried to rebel again. True, that particular race of young ones was the most strictly ruled, but that was for the greater good. It was that particular race who had asked for permission to build the Babylon stations. The other races did not need such permission, but again none of them had fought against their rule, and even successfully, though that had been several thousand years ago, the fire in that race had never quite gone out.

The ruling ones however did allow them to build the Babylon station, well stations as they did need the first one to be built for the shadow war nearly a thousand years ago. The ruling ones made sure that no younger race fought another as that would weaken both. The ruling ones told the younger races whom they ruled to call them Vorlons, which was what they called themselves. The younger races obeyed, and soon the first Babylon station was built. It was whisked off into the past at the proper time and the second Babylon station was built. That one stayed, as it was supposed to, in the present and the Commander was chosen. It was, of course the one who would become, in time, a leader in the fight against the shadows about a thousand years ago. The Vorlons decided to send an ambassador to the human Babylon station, for it was a crossroads and they could not let such a place go around unchecked, lest the humans, or earthers as the other younger races called them became rebellious.


	2. Trouble

Nyt Yanse: Thank you, here is the next part

Happyfish: Here you go.

Sinclair had no idea why of all people he was chosen to head the Babylon station. /Sure, it was a human project, but they could have never been able to build it without the permission of the Vorlons. Just the word Vorlon made all humans tense and edgy, and speaking about a Vorlon was not encouraged on Earth. And Zeus forbid any one making a less than nice comment about one on Earth one of their ruling one's informants, or someone whom just heard the comment and came within a one hundred foot radius of the Vorlon the person who made the comment would get punished. Their family would also get punished if the Vorlon was in a particularly vindictive mood. / As he mused over those depressing thoughts he got a communiqué. It read 'you will be receiving a Vorlon ambassador within the next month.' Sinclair paled visibly and his hands shook.

Ambassador Delenn was in C&C and was about to greet Sinclair when she saw his reaction to an obviously devastating piece of news. She cleared her throat and asked, "Commander Sinclair, what is wrong?"

"Babylon station will be hosting a V-v-ruling one." Sinclair rushed out as best as he could, but he couldn't bring himself to say the word Vorlon. Saying that particular word would probably make the blasted alien appear all the faster. It was true for Greek monsters, when said creatures plucked up enough courage to try and go after a half blood, if a half blood wasn't at camp, which was exceedingly rare since the Vorlon came to Earth.

"Who is a ruling one?" Interjected a curious ambassador Mollari.

"Vorlons, I meant Vorlons." Sinclair clarified tiredly. The two ambassadors noticed that all of the earthers flinched at the name.

The two ambassadors were curious to know why the earthers were so jittery and nervous about the coming of a Vorlon. In typical Centauri fashion Mollari asked bluntly "Why are you earthers so nervous of the Vorlons? Sure they rule over all of us younger races, but they are not the cruelest rulers. For the Centauri, we might have complained a little, but the Vorlons have been much kinder rulers than several emperors."

"The Vorlons have brought peace and stability to my people." Delenn informed them. "Why do you fear the Vorlons? Does your people fear the Vorlons, and why?"

"They might have been kinder to your people than previous rulers of your world ambassador Mollari, and might have brought stability to your people ambassador Delenn… But for mine? If I told you they would find out and we would all be punished. Vorlons are powerfully telepathic, did either of you know that piece of information?" Sinclair answered eyes far away and voice soft.

Then the realization that a Vorlon was coming to the Babylon station sunk into the pair of ambassadors minds. They had been distracted by Commander Sinclair's despondency at the news, and the twitchiness of all of the earthers including the usually unflappable Sinclair. "That is… Most unexpected." Mollari managed, "I wonder why they are sending an ambassador here?"

"How, who, or what can we expect from them? What may be an unexpected facet of their collective personalities to one race may be completely unexpected to another. This place is a crossroads, lots of trade, ideas and many different peoples meet here. Along with the fact that… Well, I see no surprise in the fact that they are sending someone to watch." Sinclair stated. "They also want to make sure that we behave ourselves."

"Oh? What do you mean by "behave ourselves" commander Sinclair?" Delenn asked curiously before Mollari could.

"My race did not gracefully accept being ruled by the Vorlons, we were… Stubborn you might say, in wanting to be self governed rather than being ruled by them." Sinclair responded as plainly as he could, and was allowed to say.

"The Centauri were as well, along with half of the league worlds." Delenn informed Sinclair.

"No, we were more… Militant, and much more stubborn. I do not think that they would allow me to tell you as much as I have, let alone more. I am being as clear as I am allowed, as much as any human is allowed to. Perhaps, though, if you were to guess I may be allowed to say if you were guessing correctly." Sinclair responded carefully, trying to say with out saying what he wanted them to do.

G'kar had heard all of the conversation (he was going to say hello, but then Sinclair started to speak, and G'kar didn't want to interrupt him). "I'm sorry, but I overheard your conversation and I have a guess." G'kar started respectfully.

"Go on G'kar." Sinclair encouraged.

"Did your race try to rebel against the Vorlons? From what I've seen I'm not surprised. Your race is passionate, clever determined, and stubborn." G'kar guessed.

Sinclair nodded his head slightly. "That was several thousand years ago. The Vorlons are very strict with my race, I think, or they could be that way with every race. Every major decision about our planet is made by the Vorlons, their word is law, and we cannot say a word against them. The Vorlons rule absolute on Earth. I can name the year, the day, the hour the Vorlons came to Earth. I can name the day we were broken, I mean the day that the rebellion was crushed. They are ever watchful, lest we become restive or worse infect the other races with our rebellious notions, like we once were."

A single thought ran through the trio of ambassadors /what have the earthers been through? /

A second thought occurred to G'kar / I wonder what the humans were like before the Vorlons. They are not only what I mentioned earlier, but fierce and fiercely loyal. They also seem curious, but that seems to be curtailed. I wonder… Poor, poor earthers. /]

"The Minbari are not nearly as tightly controlled as your people. Are yours Londo?" Delenn responded, thoroughly startled by the earthers defiance. Londo and G'kar were similarly and equally startled. Earthers were a diligent and hard working bunch who never seemed to complain (much at least.) In fact a warrior caste Minbari could have complained at certain situations before humans made so much as a disparaging sound. /Perhaps they are used to harsher circumstances, or different circumstances, or maybe they don't see the point of complaining. /

Londo, direct as ever asked "Why do you earthers never complain? It is disturbing how little you complain."

"Things could be worse. There is no use in vocalizing your unhappiness or you may find that things can get much worse very rapidly. We don't complain about people because you never know if they can hear you or will find out. So we keep such things to ourselves." Sinclair answered succinctly.

Everyone was preparing for the Vorlon's arrival. All rules and laws were enforced to the letter and everything was in exquisite shape. The Vorlon's personal chambers were nearly completed to their environmental specifications When, as predicted by the humans, the Vorlon arrived early. There were a few ships waiting to dock, but the ships drew back respectfully, allowing the Vorlon first passage.

Delenn, G'kar, and Londo were at the reception that was to greet the Vorlon curiously Sinclair had yet to arrive, which perturbed them.

Sinclair was on his way to the reception for the Vorlon when the turbo lift jolted to a halt. He tried to raise someone on his communicator, but only got static in response. A couple tense minutes later the turbo lift inexplicably started up again, taking down to the reception. No sooner had he gotten there that sirens went off.

Garibaldi joined him as they raced into the room, hearts pounding in their mouths. When they saw that the Vorlon-Kosh was what they were instructed to call the Vorlon as, had collapsed. Their blood froze and their hearts plummeted into their shoes. Sinclair's and Garibladi's first thought was / I hope that the Vorlon is all right or there will be massive amounts of trouble. /

Please review!


	3. problems

Happyfish: I am, see.

Nyt Yanse: Thanks, but Sinclair is defeated and… Well Broken… Not so much, but kinda.

* * *

The med lab people worked for hours trying to save Kosh. The Vorlons had a law stating that if a Vorlon was injured the medical people could try to help the Vorlon, provided that all equipment, recordings and personnel would be sent into their space. Sinclair managed to get to a secure terminal when a Vorlon came into focus. "Ambassador Kosh has been injured somehow." Sinclair started.

"We know." The Vorlon stated, cutting off Sinclair sharply. "Open your mind." Sinclair instantly knew what the Vorlon meant, calmed his mind and looked straight at the screen.

A visiting Minbari telepath was walking past Sinclair when he felt the human's mind become much more open for a telepath to enter. Then a powerful mind unceremoniously tore through Sinclair's memories, searching for something. The powerful mind then tore through all of the other humans near Sinclair and the powerful mind went on through the earthers' minds throughout the entire station. Suddenly the powerful mind seemed to withdraw and vanish from the station completely, not a single hint of the mind's presence was felt.

Sinclair was given some instructions by the Vorlon, and then the screen switched off. Sinclair got up and staggered into the nearest turbo lift, and mumbled a level. The humans (with the exceptions of Lyta and Ivonova, both of whom had collapsed, (the Vorlon had used their telepathic abilities to boost his own)) all staggered back to what they were doing, pain in their movements.

Delenn stepped into a turbo lift on her way to speak with the Gaim ambassador and noticed to her consternation, that Sinclair was leaning against the far corner of the lift, ashen faced and trembling slightly. "Commander Sinclair, are you well?"

Sinclair opened one eye a hair and shook his head slightly, responding with a weary "No."

"Can you tell me why you are unwell?" Delenn asked quietly. Sinclair was about to respond when the lift stopped and he left the lift.

Sinclair found Lyta who looked worse than he felt, and according to the concerned question from the Minbari ambassador, looked. "Lyta can you use your telepathic abilities?"

"I think I can, but I'm not sure." Lyta responded shakily.

"The Vorlons told me to find the nearest telepath and to, by proxy, order that telepath to scan their ambassador. You are the only telepath on board Babylon station as far as I know." Sinclair murmured.

"Why?" Lyta queried.

"To see if he saw who attacked him. You have to go with the medical staff into Vorlon Space if you do." Sinclair informed her.

"I'll do it. The Vorlons will pin it on us if we do not even though one just trampled through our minds." Lyta told Sinclair. The two of them made their way to the isolab where Kosh was being cared for. It was hard for Lyta to get into Kosh's mind and who she saw attack Kosh, well poison him with a flesh tab in the right hand, shocked her, but she couldn't see how it could possibly be him, because he was scanned, along with the rest of the humans.

Sinclair waited nervously for Lyta to come out, mind flashing over the possibilities. Garibaldi came in watching what Lyta was doing silently. But he really couldn't figure it out. Most of the other races, those that he had met anyways, were thoroughly convinced that the Vorlons were good.

When a shaken Lyta came out she fought her way clear of the memory and gasped out "Kosh saw you attack him, Commander Sinclair."

Sinclair spluttered in shock, his mind in utter shock. His thoughts were going a million miles an hour and one thought was / this is going to cause all sorts of trouble… But I was apart of the scan, and I wasn't any where near Kosh when he was attacked… /

"Who ever it was could have had a camouflage field." Garibaldi mused.

Sinclair and Lyta both looked at him in astonishment. "But why? That is so unstable; it's outlawed in every civilized sector?"

"Ah you see. Maintenance found a dead man outside the station while looking for the cause of an oxygen dip. He was a tech runner. He went through the same part of space that the obstinate Narn transport did… At the same time too… I don't think it is a coincidence." Garibladi informed the two.

* * *

G'kar and the other advisory counsel members were shocked to find that, through a second hand witness that Sinclair of all people was the suspect, though what Sinclair had told them earlier, an earther attacking a Vorlons was less strange of a thought than one of the other races, as they had not actively rebelled against the Vorlons, however long ago that was the fire was still in their eyes, buried by centuries of rule and doused heavily, but there nonetheless. Ivonova was in place of Sinclair on the council and G'kar told the Vorlons who the main suspect was for attacking Kosh when the council had gone for recess…

When the council went into session G'kar started off about the fact that they weren't lawmakers or judges or anything of that kind. When Ivonova asked for the point he was wending towards he stated, "Who are we to play Judge and Jury, we should leave this matter to a court of law, like that on the Vorlon home world. I therefore move that we send Sinclair along with all evidence in this case."

The ambassadors and Ivonova had to go into recess to talk with their governments, and were allowed to do different things. The Minbari were allowed to be either neutral (as they were trying to figure out if he was Valen or not) or vote for shipping Sinclair off. G'kar knew his vote and so did Londo.

Ivonova was voting against the shipping off of Sinclair and she didn't care the consequences for voting that way. She was also not given any orders to vote either way or neither so she chose what she felt as the decision.

Unfortunately when it came to a vote, with Sinclair watching in the background, G'kar had a surprise after the vote was tied one abstain and a veto against two yes votes, it was that he had spoken with the Vorlon high command and that they agreed with G'kar and wanted to have Sinclair sent to their world.

Sinclair was _**furious**_. He had been the human that the Vorlon had first trampled through, had every thought and memory ripped from and perused first and they thought that _he_ could have harmed the ambassador. Further when the records for the turbolift were checked, none had shown any unauthorized stops or delays for the entire week. But he was unsurprised as such things on a smaller scale had happened on earth for longer than he had been alive.

* * *

Garibaldi was doing the energy scanning thing that Sinclair had come up with, but for some reason the systems was remarkably unresponsive. Growling in frustration, he delved into the machine, determined to clear his friend with this feint hope. He finally got it to work the way he wanted and had it down to what they had decided and the location of the energy blip showing Kosh's attacker appeared. The location of the blip made Garibaldi pale. "Garibaldi to security, come in security!" He shouted desperately.

"Security here, what's wrong boss?" Zach answered concernedly.

"Get a team down to the Vorlon ambassador's isolab right now! The blip is in that room and they might just try to finish him off!" Garibaldi answered, all ready in a turbolift, heading down to the isolab, praying that he wasn't to late or all manner of trouble was going to come crashing down on the lot of them very soon.

Zach told the other security people in the room and led the way, barreling down to the room. None of the humans were particularly fond of Vorlons in general and the Earth Vorlon especially, but they did like Sinclair. He was good CO and they would hate to lose him to the Vorlons.

* * *

Please review!!


	4. Forgive me but you HAVE to read this

Founded by chisato12010

!Important!

I heard about Redbotton (a program that may get my stories and maybe your stories deleted from FanFiction .net)…

Please read this article I copied off from Civil Initiative .com... If I get in trouble for posting this then so be it, but I feel all readers should know the facts… It's their RIGHT…

Friday, August 27, 2010

The RedBotton Issue and what it means for FFNet

As some may have noticed there has recently been a mass reporting of stories on FFNet that are being made by a person known as RedBootton. The administration of the site have been made aware of a disturbing revelation about this account.

RedBootton is actually a program that was designed by Lord Kelvin and is used by various members of Literate Union. Redbootton appears to be capable of accessing Ffnet and searching stories or summaries for either key words or patterns of grammar and then creating a list of the stories that are "in violation of ToS" it then mass reports these stories until the stories are either removed by the author or mods. The members of LU don't even scan over the list before executing the report portion of the program.

The list itself is generated in a matter of minutes.

The idea is to go through each fandom systematically and clean house until Lord Kelvin can finish the touches on the site wide program. After each fandom is cleaned it will then be used to scan all new stories being posted.

This is a serious violation of the ToS on FFNet  
_4. General Use of the Website  
hereby grants you permission to access and use the Website as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that:  
A. You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Website, including but not limited to User Submissions (defined below), without 's prior written authorization.  
B. You agree not to alter or modify any part of the Website.  
C. You agree not to access User Submissions (defined below) or Content through any technology or means other than the Website itself.  
E. You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots," "spiders," or "offline readers," that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser. Notwithstanding the foregoing, grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases. You agree not to collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Website, nor to use the communication systems provided by the Website (e.g. comments, email) for any commercial solicitation purposes. You agree not to solicit, for commercial purposes, any users of the Website with respect to their User Submissions. _

What is disturbing about this issue is that many false positives are given, and stories that are not in violation are being reported. The administration of FFNET have been made aware of this issue, but even after repeated e-mails they seem to be either indifferent or actually support the use of this program by Literate Union.

What follows is what is known about RedBootton and how this one simple program could easily impact the site and why every one should be angry that the administration as remained silent about this issue.

(RB) is a program that accesses and systematically searches for and reports stories that it flags as in violation of ToS.  
program is not perfect and has had false hits, resulting in stories with the inclusion of a header formatted in the following manner as being reported for script format even when the rest of the story is in actual story paragraph form.  
Rating:  
Pairing:  
Summery:  
Authors Note:  
no long reads or even checks over the stories that are flagged by RB before hitting the report function.  
advanced form of the program that is available to trusted members that includes a search function for typo's and grammar. This could result in a 10,000+ word stories that may have a few typo's or stories that have characters that may have dialog that is grammatically incorrect as being reported.  
is a beta version that will have the ability to search for MA stories. This search function is based upon the flagging of certain words within the text. A story that may have a rooster referred to as a cock or a cat being called a pussy could easily be flagged and reported as MA.  
6.A Beta version of the advanced program will have the capability to "clean house" site wide, including scanning any stories as they are being posted.

For those who think that is fiction I give you links to the Literate Union Forum.

.net/topic/61196/30589812/1/

In this thread is where Lord Kelvin talks about and includes links to where this program can be downloaded for general use. At one point LK even states _"Specific words/phrases are rated MA automatically because they are only present in stories with paraphilia."_

.net/topic/61196/30532995/38/#30685587

In this thread there is more talk about both RB and how to use it.

Over the past week multiple emails were sent to the admin and mods of FFNet with no answer. Although it is possible that with a site as large as FFNet that they have yet to find time to address this issue, I find myself leaning more to the belief that they just don't care. Since the site seems unwilling or unable to handle this issue there is only one solution.

That is to leave FFNet. Writers should remove their stories and find alternative sites for posting them. Readers to stop visiting. Perhaps then and only then will this issue be seen as important by the owner.

Personally I would rather fight then flee. Anything worth my time is worth fighting for.

**Please Post this same message to your stories to to let out the word. **


End file.
